


Coalescence

by vtn



Category: Green Day, The Beatles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-11
Updated: 2006-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-13 07:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lazy afternoon daydream brings Billie to the side of John Lennon's piano.  For butyoumight's Crossing Parallels universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coalescence

The light coming in through the window of the room was the muted gold of a late afternoon; the wind outside was still and the shadows stood rapt listening as John played the piano. He was hardly even writing a song, just pressing the keys and making soft sounds, painting the colors into the day. Eyes closed, he let his fingers glide across the keys like they were floating. He daydreamed of a place where he’d once been. 

John was alone in the house. Everyone else had gone out, gone for something-or-other that needed doing, left him to himself with his thoughts and his instruments. And while he could have been strumming his guitar and dancing through the house, which he had done before, today was one of those days for piano, the kind of piano playing where the sound could be outdone by a cat padding along the floor, its paws clicking out time. But there wasn’t a cat in the house, nor anyone else. Just John and the piano.

John _was_ alone in the house, wasn’t he? He had never heard a car pull up or the door open, but now there was a, just a _feeling_ of being with someone. A comfortable ‘with someone’, like waking up in the morning to find yourself curled in the arms of someone who’s still asleep, eyes closed and expression peaceful. Keeping his eyes shut, willing the feeling to stay, he started to play in some sort of rhythm, holding the damper pedal and making the chords blend. It was just a finger’s breadth away from discordance, but somehow not, just like the way the colors of the afternoon sun blended, the way the day blended into dusk.

And, in a blend that echoed the other three, the soft sound of a harmonica began to intertwine itself with the piano chords, so faint John would have missed it if not for the silence that surrounded him. But he didn’t miss it, and he smiled. And when the song was done—for such songs that are hardly even songs, while lacking most structure, do possess the virtues of knowing very well when they are done and fading out in a timely manner—John found his fingers intertwining with smaller, shorter fingers. He felt a shift, a body pressing up against his own. He slowly opened his eyes and looked into green ones.

Then he closed his eyes again and, with his free hand, cupped Billie Joe Armstrong’s cheek and kissed him, a kiss that tasted of coffee and cigarettes and _youth_ and the future. Sometimes you don’t need words, and they didn’t. There weren’t even sounds; there were just feelings—soft, lazy, peaceful feelings that to John meant coming home. 

The years had taught John to appreciate what was before him. Or, that was a lie; he was still learning, but he _was_ getting better each day. He appreciated when Billie leaned his head back and John could run lips and tongue across the warm skin of Billie’s neck; he appreciated being held against Billie’s chest, Billie’s heartbeat filling his ears.  _Here. Real._  


Songs that are not songs know when to end; they also know when to start. Timing is everything, and suddenly everything was timing without even trying to be. Billie on the piano, John on the harmonica, or maybe it was the other way around, but either way it ended up with the kind of kiss that John had never had before in his life. This time it didn’t taste like anything he could decipher; that would be like trying to describe the taste of constellations or memories, and it _hurt_. But it was a good hurt, if there can be such a thing, the kind of hurt that reminded him of when his mother held him, so tight that he knew he could never let go (but at the same time, he had to).

“Sing for me,” Billie whispered.

John began to play again. He knew exactly what song.

“ _Half of what I say is meaningless. But I say it just to reach you, Julia…_ ”

And as he sang and played, the sound of a harmonica joined him, soft, growing softer until it blended in with the colors of the afternoon light.


End file.
